Less than a year ago, Leap Motion came out and turned heads with the Leap, their amazing gesture recognizing tech. We have good news for those of you who were impressed by the tiny device and pre-ordered it. The device starts shipping on the 13^th of May.

There’s nothing to worry in case you couldn’t make up your mind and missed ordering the device as it will be available at Best Buy on May 19th with a price tag of $80. The company is also opening Airspace, the system’s exclusive app store, sometime in May.

Just in case you are new to the Leap, you connect it to your computer via USB and it creates a virtual workspace within which it tracks all ten of your fingers at the same time. It is accurate enough to let you use your gestures to pinch-to-zoom or even manipulate 3D-rendered objects. Sometime in the future, the device might even end up inside laptops, smartphones and tablets.

So, are you interested in the new device? Or is that price tag a tad more than what you expected?

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If you’re in the market for a good quality entry-level digital SLR, it looks like a pretty good deal has sprung up at Best Buy. You can now save $100 on the Canon EOS Rebel T3i 18.0MP digital SLR with the 18-55mm kit lens, bringing your purchase price down to just $599.99.

In case you aren’t familiar with this camera, the Canon T3i features an 18.0-megapixel CMOS sensor offering a 1.6x field of view. It also has a 3″ Clear view TFT-LCD monitor with Live View technology, full 1080p (30fps) HD video recording, 3.7fps burst rate, built-in flash, DIGIC 4 image processor, and ISO 100-6400 (expandable to 12800). And this comes bundled with the EF-S 18-55mm f/42.5-5.6 IS zoom lens.

As an added bonus, Best Buy is also throwing in a free Lowepro all-weather camera bag (Rezo 170AW) valued at $52.99. It’s a shoulder bag with enough room for 2-3 extra lenses and some accessories. Head over to the product page for more details and to pick up the T3i bundle for $599.99.

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That’s the notion being put forth by Larry Downes of Forbes Magazine. Despite the slow bleed out from other electronic competitors, Best Buy actually saw its market share drop with a corresponding 40% drop in stock value last year. WSJ said that the “worst is yet to come” for Best Buy.

But why is that? One idea put forth has to do with customer service. You can generally categorize customers in one of two groups. There are the self-service types who know exactly what they want and don’t need any help. These are the folks that may rather turn to online shopping, or in the case of my local Vancouver area, a store like NCIX. Then, there are the folks who do want some customer service and guidance. The trouble is that Best Buy isn’t providing “customer service,” according to Downes. It’s “anti-service” because the associates are too busy upselling, suggestive selling, and cross-selling. That’s “in lieu of actual training on either the products or effective sales.”

And let’s not forget about the Apple Store. Best Buy has run out of that unique selling proposition, it seems, and it’s just going to be a slow and gradual death with customers leaking out to other channels. What do you think? Is Best Buy joining Circuit City to the pits? What can it do to attract customers again? Or will it be deemed “too big to fail” and get a government bailout?  What’s your experience at Best Buy?

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Latest news has it that these nVidia Tegra 3 quad-core 32GB 10-inch tablets running customized Android 3.2 Honeycomb were sold out quickly. However, slates are about to reappear soon, or can be shipped to stores (at least in Silicon Valley where I checked) in 3-5 days from now. So anyone feeling holiday blues and 5 Franklins in his/her pocket thats left unspent, may try this toy instead. Droid-Life’s Kellex has put up an interesting video review of the slate, so much of the boring tech specs could be just omitted:

On top of what was being said in this review, it’s worth to mention that the responsiveness is not so stellar throughout the tablet’s UI. ASUS customizations of a clean Android 3.2 are suspected to be responsible for this, then the nVidia Tegra 3 code for drivers and such might be just quite immature for the first Tegra 3 based device.

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The idea of how the Grinch changed his heart when he realized that the true spirit of Christmas was something more than gifts and Christmas feasts. The Grinch took away the presents, sure, but he couldn’t kill the Christmas spirit.

Now it’s time to test how well this theory works out in the real world, where a move by Best Buy now has people comparing my favorite Dr. Seuss character to the large electronics retailer.

The Grinch, in the form of Best Buy, did in fact take presents away from the tree this year in the form of canceled orders.

Although Best Buy hasn’t released specific information about how many orders it had to cancel, what is apparent is they took in more online purchases than they could handle, ran out of supplies, and then waited just under a week before Christmas to bother and tell anyone about it.

We all know there are some risks when it comes to online shopping, such as chances of credit card theft or online cancellations. We are supposed to be comforted that larger chains like Walmart, Amazon, and Best Buy have us covered and won’t let us down- this event certainly doesn’t give us much comfort though.

According to the Wall Street Journal though, Best Buy is merely going to experience a minor hiccup that won’t in the long run hurt their holiday sales. So in this story the corporate version of the Grinch didn’t learn a valuable lesson about Christmas when he took away all the presents.

For those who complain enough Best Buy will issue them a gift card, but those who take it in stride like the Whos down in Whoville did, will largely be left with nothing other than a refund.

Not exactly the heartwarming Christmas classic as I remember it, but nonetheless not that particularly surprising. The lesson here? For consumers: Be careful about online shopping around the holidays. For the retailers: Don’t bite off more than you can chew. When you run low on stock, stop taking new orders!

The post The Retailer That Stole Christmas appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

His name is David Fayram and he is a senior software engineer at CrowdFlower. He just waltzed into Best Buy, asked for the phone, and bought it from a store employee who sold it to him “by accident.” It’s also said that some other folks have had some luck getting their hands on the Galaxy Nexus ahead of schedule from Verizon stores too.

Fayram reports that this is a “cutting edge phone, without the ostenation and outrageous materials of the Droid Razr.” Sadly, it is loaded with some Verizon bloatware, including My Verizon Mobile and Verizon Migration Assistant. It’s still the “pure” Google experience, I suppose, but bloatware brands the phone beyond that Verizon stamp on the back. To be fair, Canadians can already get the Galaxy Nexus from Bell and Virgin.

The post Verizon Sells Galaxy Nexus Smartphone Ahead Of Schedule appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Best Buy eventually put up signs saying this price drop was an error and they won’t honor the reduced price. They’ll gladly sell you a Flyer at the full $299 price, of course, but that’s not at all the smoking $99 deal that we all want. Even so, maybe you’ll be lucky enough to find someone at your local Best Buy that will honor it… or perhaps a lawyer.

The post Price Error: HTC Flyer Android tablet is not $99 from Best Buy appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

According to the leak, some “Apple-related fixtures” will be put in place in Best Buy stores on the morning of October 21. While the leak makes no mention of the iPhone 5 in particular, it’s unlikely that this would lend itself to a new MacBook or Apple TV, though those are still very much possible. Earlier rumors pointed toward an October 9 launch in New Zealand, but it makes little sense to give the iPhone to NZ before the US. What is that Tim Cook thinking?

October is going to be a very busy month for cell phone fans. We’re hearing that the Nexus Prime with Ice Cream Sandwich will get its official debut, as will a bigger push for WP7 via Microsoft and Nokia, but you just know that Apple will steal more than its share of thunder if the iPhone 5 is indeed launching that month too.

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Music Cloud service is powered by Catch Media’s PlayAnywhere technology, and it works with iOS, BlackBerry and Android. It looks like there will be a “lite” version and a “pro” version. The lite version is free, but limits you to only 30 seconds of your songs. Yes, you can only listen to 30 seconds of your own music. There’s not much of a point to a free version, unless you’re okay with a teaser and want to test it out before upgrading to pro. It’ll be tough to compete with the other cloud services, as Amazon’s Cloud Drive comes free with 5 GB of storage, and Google’s Music Beta gives you the ability to store up to 20,000 songs without charge.

Apple’s iCloud automatically scans customers’ digital music libraries into iTunes, while with Music Cloud you would have to upload the music yourself. Currently, Music Cloud only works if you connect it to your iTunes library. If you don’t have iTunes, you can’t use it. The service won’t upload from Windows Media Player or a folder/directory on your desktop. Hopefully Best Buy can fix that, and reconsider the limitations of the lite version before the official release. Otherwise they’ll have a hard time competing with cloud services that offer free storage for full songs, not just 30 seconds worth.

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Yeah, lagging sales could be due to customer confusion about the charging process. Or maybe it has something to do with lack of dedicated sales people, little commitment to marketing the product and no charging stations installed in front of stores to show it’s easy to give the battery a quick boost. While it takes hours to charge the scooters completely, anything would have made the scooters more attractive than just leaving them on display in Best Buy stores without charging options.

Toyota made sure to open the first pipeline-fed hydrogen station back in May in anticipation of their hydrogen-fueled car, promised to arrive in 2015. The San Francisco government is giving free charging for EVs until the end of 2013 to encourage EV adoption, so Best Buy could have easily done something similar in front of their stores in an attempt to boost scooter sales. Sounds to me like Best Buy was using them to hop on the green bandwagon, with little support for actually selling the things.

Now Best Buy has told Seeking Alpha that they see an EV as a “computer on wheels.” Meaning that like any computer, EVs eventually break down or need service. Best Buy has made deals with Ford and Mitsubishi for installation and support of home EV charging stations, but could the Geek Squad come to your rescue when your EV breaks down? It’s all speculative at this point, but Best Buy could eventually perform maintenance on your EV in your own driveway, much like Tesla’s Mobile Service Rangers but for other EV brands. Tesla Mobile Service Rangers perform inspections, firmware upgrades and other services at customers’ homes. Such a service could encourage EV adoption, showing maintenance on an EV is easy and accessible. But first you have to believe than an EV can be simplified to a “computer on wheels.”

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